Rafa Benitez insists Aleksandar Mitrovic remains in his Newcastle United plans for now - though admits he will have to assess his squad come the January transfer window.

The Serbian has yet to start a Premier League game so far this season and has not been named in three of the last four matchday squads.

He is currently third-choice forward behind Joselu and Dwight Gayle, and reports in Belgium have suggested former club Anderlecht could make a January loan bid for the 23-year-old.

But Benitez is refusing to make any definitive decisions about the medium-term future of any of his players until the January transfer window opens - and has instead challenged Mitrovic to win his place in the Magpies starting XI.

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“Every player who is not playing, the closer we get to January, there could be a rumour in the Press,” Benitez said of Mitrovic ahead of Saturday’s Premier League clash with AFC Bournemouth at St James’ Park.

“But at the moment we are working with 26 players in the squad to try to improve them. I cannot say, ‘I want to do this or that’, because maybe we cannot.

“I had this conversation with an agent the other day, I said: ‘You have to wait until December to see where we are because if I say yes, he can go, after that we could have an injury.’ So why do I have to sell my player if I don’t have a replacement.

“Then you go for the replacement and it’s £30million, or he wants to wait until next year, or won’t come because we don’t play Champions League.

“So why do I have to agree to something now when have two months to go? Are we working on names? Yes, you have to be ready.”

Joselu has scored twice for Newcastle so far this season, yet has started eight league matches in succession.

But Benitez has told Mitrovic and Gayle to be ready to grasp their chance, should it arrive.

“It’s the same answer when people are asking about [Ciaran] Clark and [Chancel] Mbemba,” Benitez added.

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“They have to compete. They have to be ready. As a striker, they have to score goals, but if the team is winning, I don’t care if it’s the striker or the full-back that is scoring goals.

“Mitrovic, Dwight... they have to keep working hard.”

The continued presence of Joselu as a lone forward with Ayoze Perez behind him as a No 10 - the latter is one of only three Newcastle players to start every Premier League match this season - has been questioned by Magpies supporters, given that only 10 goals have been scored in 10 games.

Yet, outside of the top eight, only two teams - Leicester City (14) and Stoke City (11) - have netted on more occasions than United so far this term.

“We are doing well when compared to other teams. Just three teams have scored more goals than us in the 14 teams at the bottom. No-one has conceded less than us. We have the balance,” Benitez added.

“But have these players scored loads more than Joselu? Most of them have not, and they do not do the work that Joselu and Ayoze are doing for us.

“Where are we? We are in a really good position, we score goals - hopefully we will score more, but we are not bad when you look at the league - we have conceded less than the others.

“We have balance, we have points and we work as a team. On September 1 we were talking about where we could finish. Now we cannot be worried because we have lost this game and maybe we could score more goals.